Page 28 of Mile High Ruin

“That sounds ominous.”

“It sounds like private aviation.”

I’m not convinced.

Before I can ask more, Camille’s attention shifts toward someone behind me. “Speaking of distractions.”

I turn. A man is standing near the bar.

He’s handsome in a polished, deliberate way, with dark hair brushed neatly back from his forehead, a well-cut charcoal jacket, and the kind of composed expression that suggests he’s accustomed to being welcomed wherever he goes. He looks a little older than the men who usually approach me in places like this, though still younger than Vadim, and there’s something about the steadiness of his gaze that makes me think of him immediately.

Not because they look alike. They don’t.

Vadim is broader, rougher around the edges, his face marked by old violence and years of apparently refusing to soften for anyone. This man is smoother, almost elegant, but he carries himself with the same unnerving certainty, as though he expects the space around him to make room.

He catches me looking and smiles.

Camille follows my gaze, and straightens. I’m not blind. I know he’s good-looking, I’m just not interested.

The man approaches slowly enough that I have time to decide whether I want him to. “Can I buy you another drink?” His voice is pleasant, lightly accented in a way I can’t place.

I glance at Camille. She gives me the smallest possible nod.

“Sure.”

He orders without touching me or leaning too close, which already puts him several miles ahead of Captain Hale.

“I’m Viktor,” he says when the bartender moves away.

I give him my first name. “Sloane.”

He repeats it once, thoughtfully.

There’s nothing strange about that. Still, something in the way he looks at me feels unusually attentive for a man who supposedly wandered over because he liked what he saw.

“You’re not from here,” he says.

“Is it that obvious?”

“Only because you look like you’re still deciding whether you like the city.”

I smile. “That is frighteningly specific.”

“Was I wrong?”

“No.”

His drink arrives.

He lifts the glass slightly. “Then I will take the victory.”

We talk.

At first, it’s easy. Travel. Hotels. Places neither of us particularly liked. He asks what brings me to the city, and I give him the safest version of the truth: work.

“What kind?”

“Aviation.”